My soldier son called last month to wish his mother and me a happy Thanksgiving. My iPhone buzzed and there he was, sitting in a gun tower, his smiling face bathed in gauzy infrared light, an M249 machine gun propped at the ready behind him. For security reasons, we didn’t talk about his location. It could’ve been Afghanistan, Iraq or Kuwait. He has spent the better part of this year serving in all three.

His infantry company will soon be rotated back to the United States after a one-year deployment. Because he’s an officer, he’ll probably be among those on the last plane out. We’re hoping it’ll be by Christmas. My son would like to be home for the holidays, of course, but his biggest concern is getting back before the start of postseason play in the NFL. He’s warned me, however, that the mysteries of Army upper management may mean we are both disappointed about the timing of his return. And so the clock ticks. Slowly.

During my son’s tour of duty — his first overseas assignment — the number of U.S. dead in Afghanistan climbed past 2,000, while the total wounded surpassed 18,000. That’s about 500 fewer Americans killed and nearly three times the number wounded during the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive in 1968. Certainly, Vietnam was a much different engagement from the one in Afghanistan, which has gone on for more than 11 years, but the casualty figures from both raise the same question:

How long should we as a nation continue to sacrifice blood and treasure for what is clearly a losing proposition?

While Tet was by no means a victory for North Vietnam, the offensive demonstrated to the American public that the communist forces were still capable of waging war on a broad scale, contrary to Pentagon assurances that the enemy had been nearly beaten into surrender. Tet disabused many Americans of the notion that the war was winnable and helped spur the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia five years later.

In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, the Pentagon routinely claims that American-led combat power has measurably degraded the enemy’s capacity to fight. Still, that enemy continues to wage war effectively. Witness the rising phenomenon of what the Defense Department refers to as “green on blue” shootings — Taliban sympathizers within the Afghan military and police turning their weapons on NATO military trainers. In 2007, there were two such insider attacks, resulting in two deaths. This year, 58 of the nearly 400 coalition military personnel who died in Afghanistan, including 35 Americans, were felled in such attacks. …

David Freed is a former Los Angeles Times reporter who covered Operation Desert Storm. His next novel, “Fangs Out,” will be published in May.

DAVAO CITY – A “super rare” ginkgo-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon ginkgodens) beached in Maco, Compostela Valley, on Wednesday but later died due to its failure to digest garbage and other debris it had eaten, a conservationist here said on Saturday.

Darrel Blatchley, an Idaho native who had settled here and founded D’Bone Collector Museum, said villagers discovered the 16-feet long “super rare whale” around 2 a.m.

“But about 10 in the morning, the whale died,” Blatchley told the Inquirer.

He said the whale, which has been transported to the D’Bone museum here for necropsy (an autopsy performed on animals), weighed about 800 kilograms.

Blatchley said the whale retrieved in Maco was only the second of its kind seen in the Philippines since 1957.

In fact, it is so rare that there are only a few of such whales discovered around the world.

There is a little known fact about the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, which is among the 21 species of beaked, medium-sized whales with distinctive, long and narrow beaks and dorsal fins near the tail, but it has been spotted in areas around the Pacific and Eastern Indian Oceans, he said.

“Very little is known about this whale. It is presumed to have food habits like those of other beaked whales and probably subsists on squid and open-water fishes,” FAO said.

“It is a fairly typical-looking species but is notable for the males not having any scarring,” FAO said, adding that the mammal was named for the unusual shape of its dual teeth, which is similar to the leaf of the ginkgo biloba plant.

This type of whale, FAO said, can grow up to 4.9 meters long from its birth length of 2.4 meters.

Since its discovery in the 1950s, there were only about 20 beachings reported off the coasts of Japan, the Galapagos Islands, California, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Maldives, FAO said.

Some fishermen off the coast of Japan also reported limited sightings of the whale, which was why it was difficult to estimate its population in the wild, it added.

Because it is super rare, the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale is covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region, which was pushed by the Convention on Migratory Species and was signed in 1996 by at least 15 countries, including the United States.

“They (wild dogs) are so beautiful. This is an additional tourist attraction in the Serengeti. Let us make sure that they are safe”, President Kikwete said on Sunday shortly after setting free the wild dogs at Nyamuma area inside the world famous park.

The wild dogs were captured at Loliondo a few months ago and kept in a special sanctuary as part of the ongoing project meant to bring back the wild dogs in the park. Loliondo is part of the Serengeti eco-system but it is outside the park.

In August this year the first family (group) comprising 15 wild dogs captured in Loliondo was set free and allowed to roam within the park’s vicinity, according to Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI) Director General Dr Simon Mduma.

“The first group is doing very well. All the wild dogs are alive”, Dr Mduma told President Kikwete in his brief remarks about the project. The project is being implemented by TAWIRI in collaboration with the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa), Wildlife Division under the sponsorship of Vodacom Tanzania and Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS).

…

The head of the nation hailed the initiatives and called for continued support from other stakeholders. “I have been visiting Senapa quite often but the absence of wild dogs in the park is one of the things that have not impressed me.

“These are commendable initiatives but the journey is still long”, President Kikwete said. Wild dogs are at the top of the list of most endangered species internationally as is the case of black rhinos, according to Dr Mduma. The animals started disappearing from Senapa in the 1980s when diseases that included rabies struck, decimating animals in the dog family.

“There were about 500 wild dogs in Serengeti at that time. “But they started dying or disappearing in the 1980s and the last wild dog in the park was seen in 1992 at Kirawira,” Dr Mduma said. Tanapa Director General Allan Kijazi said that efforts will be made to protect as well as increase the number of wild dogs. “We are expecting these wild dogs to remain in the park and flourish,” Mr Kijazi said without going into details.

South Africa: These gorgeous images of African wild dog pups were taken by Twalu’s conservation director Gus van Dyk: here.

Barak Obama & Angelina Jolie get spiders named after them
December 2012. A researcher at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History and Department of Biological Sciences has reported the discovery 33 new trapdoor spider species from the American Southwest. These newly described species all belong to the genus Aptostichus which now contains 40 species, two of which are already famous – Aptostichus stephencolberti and Aptostichus angelinajolieae.

Barack-Obama-i

The genus now includes other such notable species as Aptostichus barackobamai, named for Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and reputed fan of Spiderman comics; Aptostichus edwardabbeyi, named for environmentalist and author Edward Abbey (1927-1989); Aptostichus bonoi from Joshua Tree National Park, named for the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2; Aptostichus pennjillettei named for illusionist and intellectual Penn Jillette; Aptostichus chavezi, named for Mexican American and civil rights and labor activist César Chávez (1927-1993).

Other notable new species names include Aptostichus anzaborrego, known only from the Anza Borrego Desert State Park in southern California; and Aptostichus sarlacc from the Mojave Desert, named for George Lucas’ Star Wars creature, the Sarlacc from the fictional desert planet Tatooine.

The researcher, Prof. Jason Bond, who is a trapdoor spider expert and the director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History was excited at the prospect of such a remarkable and large find of new species here in the United States and particularly California.

Biodiversity hotspot

“California is known as what is characterized as a biodiversity hotspot. Although this designation is primarily based on plant diversity, the region is clearly very rich in its animal diversity as well. While it is absolutely remarkable that a large number of species from such a heavily populated area have gone unnoticed, it clearly speaks volumes to how little we know of the biodiversity around us and that many more species on the planet await discovery ” Bond said.

Like other trapdoor spider species, individuals are rarely seen because they live their lives in below-ground burrows that are covered by trapdoors, made by the spider using mixtures of soil, sand, and/or plant material, and silk. The trapdoor serves to hide the spider when it forages for meals at the burrow entrance, usually at night.

Aptostichus species are found in an amazing number of Californian habitats to include coastal sand dunes, chaparral, desert, oak woodland forests, and at high altitudes in the alpine habitats of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Bond said, “This particular group of trapdoor spiders are among some of the most beautiful with which I have worked; species often have gorgeous tiger-striping on their abdomens. Aptostichus to my mind represents a true adaptive radiation – a classical situation in evolutionary biology where diversification, or speciation, has occurred such that a large number of species occupy a wide range of different habitats”.

Bond also noted that while a number of the species have rather fanciful names, his favourite is the one named for his daughter Elisabeth. “Elisabeth’s spider is from an incredibly extreme desert environment out near Barstow, California that is the site of a relatively young volcanic cinder cone. The spiders make their burrows among the lava tubes that extend out from the cone – it is a spectacular place to visit but the species is very difficult to collect because the spiders build rather deep burrow among the rocks”.

The remorse felt by Himali Chungda Sherpa after he killed three snow leopard cubs in retaliation for his lost cattle inspired him to set up a scheme to prevent other herders from doing the same.

Sherpa lost his cattle near Ghunsa village at the base of Mount Kangchenjunga on the Nepal-India border, later finding their remains in a cave beside three sleeping snow leopard cubs.

The Nepalese herder put the cubs in a sack and threw them into the river, finding their bodies the next day.

“From that night onwards the mother snow leopard started crying from the mountain for her cubs, and my cattle were crying for the loss of their calves.

“I realised how big a sin I had committed and promised myself that I would never do such a thing in the future.”

Four years ago Sherpa, 48, founded with other locals an insurance plan for livestock that conservationists say is deterring herders from killing snow leopards that attack their animals.

In doing so the scheme has given hope for the endangered cat, whose numbers across the mountains of 12 countries in south and central Asia are thought to have declined by 20 percent over the past 16 years.

Under the scheme, herders pay in 55 rupees ($1.50) a year for each of their hairy yaks, the vital pack animal that is also kept for milk and meat, and are paid 2,500 rupees for any animal killed by the endangered cat.

“The (Himalayan) communities have been able to pay out compensation for more than 200 animals since the scheme started,” WWF Nepal conservation director Ghana Gurung told reporters at a presentation in the capital Kathmandu.

“The community members are the ones that monitor this, they are the ones who do the patrolling and they are the ones who verify the kills.”

Experts believe just 300 to 500 adults survive in Nepal, and few can claim ever to have seen the secretive, solitary “mountain ghost”, which lives 5,000 to 6,000 metres (16,500 to 20,000 feet) above sea level.

Despite its name, it is not a close relative of the leopard and has much more in common genetically with the tiger, though it is thought to have a placid temperament.

“There has never been a case of a snow leopard attacking a human,” Gurung said of the animal, revered for its thick grey patterned pelt.

It does, however, have a taste for sheep, goats and other livestock essential for the livelihoods of farmers and is often killed by humans either as a preventative measure or in revenge for the deaths of their animals.

Sherpa now campaigns to convince Himalayan farmers that killing snow leopards is wrong, but has been frequently told they need to kill the animal to protect their livelihoods.

“I swear if I can catch a snow leopard. They rob our animals and our source of livelihood,” herder Chokyab Bhuttia told the WWF.

The insurance plan, which also covers sheep and goats, was set up with 1.2 million rupees donated by the University of Zurich.

Since the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Snow Leopard Insurance plan was launched four years ago no snow leopard is thought to have been killed in retaliation for preying on livestock since.

Locals, who count the number of cattle attacked as well as tracks, fecal pellets and scratches in the ground, believe snow leopard numbers have significantly increased.

“There is now an awareness among people that the snow leopard is an endangered animal and we have to protect it. The insurance policy has made people more tolerant to the loss of their livestock,” Sherpa said.

He believes protecting the snow leopard is vital to boosting the economy in an area which gets just a few hundred trekkers a year, compared with 74,000 in Annapurna.

“If a tourist sees a snow leopard and takes a picture of it there will be publicity of our region and more tourists will come,” Sherpa said.

Evidence of the scheme’s benefits will remain anecdotal until the publication next year of the results of a wide-ranging camera trapping survey.

This inspiring footage of the Birds-of-Paradise project celebrates the Cornell Lab of Ornithology‘s long-standing tradition of documenting and sharing information about the natural world. Thanks to you, that tradition continues. We hope you’ll keep watching, listening, and exploring with us to improve the understanding and protection of birds and biodiversity around the globe. Filmed and photographed by Tim Laman. To make a gift to the Cornell Lab visit birds.cornell.edu/support

Rhinos and elephants have a range of remarkable behaviours and adaptations, many of which we are only just learning.

Emerging through the twilight, a beast lumbers forward, sniffing, snorting, searching for something.

One of the largest animals to walk the earth, it is on a surprising mission.

This black rhino is embarking on a midnight journey, seeking out other rhinos in the dark to socialise and mate with, sharing some never-before-seen tender moments.

The behaviour, captured by filmmakers for the landmark programme Africa, a BBC / Discovery co-production, is one of a number of once secret activities undertaken by some of the largest land animals of all.

Their size makes them relatively easy to spot and an easy target for poachers, who continue to hunt both groups of large mammal in significant numbers: elephants mainly for ivory in their tusks and rhinos for their horns.

They have all been extensively studied by scientists, in the field and also in wildlife parks, breeding centres and zoos.

But much about them, and what they get up to, remains a mystery, with many discoveries into their behaviour and adaptations only being made recently.

We are still struggling to understand just how unique are different populations of these megafauna.

The same year, scientists controversially suggested that the northern and white rhinos are so distinct in appearance and genetics, that they should be classified as separate species, taking the number of living rhino species to six.

Such work is more than academic; if northern white rhinos are a unique species they immediately become one of the rarest of all, as just a handful survive.

Last century, black rhinos disappeared faster than any large mammal, primarily due to hunting. Understanding the true diversity of the remaining rhinos allows conservationists to work out how best to save them.

Big bodies

Recently, we have learnt more about how these animals function.

Unlike their African cousins, Asian elephants don’t use their ears to shed heat (shown blue as they are cool)

Scientists are only just discovering why elephants have a fine coating of body hair, rather than the thick pelage of most mammals. Only a few mammals, including humans and seals, have such little body hair.

The answer is that elephant body hair actually helps the large mammals regulate their body temperature, according to a PLoS One study published in October.

Elephants are so large they have the highest body-volume to skin-surface ratio of any terrestrial animal, which means they have the most difficulty in keeping cool, especially under the hot African sun.

The fine hairs covering their body, which help shed heat, enhance their ability to keep cool by a minimum of 5% and more than 20% when wind speeds are low, when the elephants need to cool most.

In the same month, researchers found that the personalities of six critically endangered northern white rhinos held in a zoological park in the Czech Republic significantly affected how they behaved when placed together into a new group. When the oldest and only wild-born female rhino was removed, the other female rhinos both fought and played more often, revealing a hitherto unknown social hierarchy between them.

Rhinos and elephants are also capable of very social, tender exchanges.

It details a moment in 2006 witnessed by elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton of the conservation organisation Save the Elephants, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

A dying matriarch elephant had been abandoned by her herd and was struggling to stand. She was approached by the matriarch of another herd, who repeatedly used her tusks to help bring the collapsed elephant to her feet, in what the researchers described as an act of compassion.

Some of these tender moments have even been caught on camera.

As part of the Africa documentary, filmmakers for the BBC and Discovery managed to film, for the first time, black rhinos gathering at night.

Abandoning their usual solitary lifestyles, the rhinos meet around a watering hole.

Filmed using a starlight camera, the supposedly intemperate rhinos meet and greet one another, socialising and forming partnerships.

A young female is even filmed being wooed by two males, before mating with a large male of her choice.